Monday 15 April 2013

Flynndie Reviews: #37 The Bedroom Hour - X Marks the Spot


Written 15th April 2013:

The Bedroom Hour – X Marks the Spot

The Band: Stu Drummond (lead vocals), Rob Payne (guitar), Dan Rider (bass), Mark Dudley (keyboards), Lewis Cosham (drums)

Right ok, so today’s review comes from an up-and-coming London-based band I’ve been following on Twitter for some time now @thebedroomhour and with the band soon to release their debut EP, I’ve decided now would be a good time to review some of the tracks made available on their website (www.thebedroomhour.com), as the band captures a nice, haunting, guitar sound of which I’m sure regular readers may well enjoy.  So today’s review covers ‘X Marks the Spot’ and a few other tracks from the website of The Bedroom Hour.

X Marks the Spot

1.     X Marks the Spot
2.     Nocturnal
3.     Submarine
4.     Shadow Boxer

Opening with a nice, gentle guitar riff and up-beat percussion ‘X Marks the Spot’ see the band open with the haunting guitar sound hinted at earlier, before we first catch lead-singer Stu Drummonds softly-sung but immediately distinct vocals for the first time.  The track is clearly loving crafted as it gently burns into the soul of the listener with an ever-building guitar melody and a strong chorus “Cross my heart and hope to die/I promise to love you more than my life/If X marks the spot/Then let’s cross the heart”, as Stu shows a real depth to his vocal range throughout the track.  It’s a nice debut track, featuring a nice rocky guitar solo midway through the track and overall this reminds me a bit in sound of U2 from their ‘Joshua Tree’ era and to a lesser extent the sound captured by The Editors on their debut album ‘The Back Room’. 

Up next we have ‘Nocturnal’, which also features a gentle yet distinct guitar-riff from Rob playfully accompanied by keys from Mark, forming the main basis of the rhythm for the track.  Again backed with up-beat percussion and Stu’s softly sung vocals, the track features a nice chorus “See the satellites/Lie awake at night/Now I’ve become nocturnal/Sleep through the day/Just to get away/From the thought of you with someone” and despite what seems a downbeat chorus, the track overall has much more of an upbeat tempo and melody to it as a whole and as such is quite an uplifting track.  ‘Submarine’ is a beautifully, slow ballad by the band.  With heart-felt, haunting keyboards at the heart of the track, it really creates a deep, captivated melancholy atmosphere of its own and really reminded me of the type of classic sound captured from early Coldplay album ‘Parachutes’.  It’s a beautiful track and really caught my attention upon first listen.

Closing track ‘Shadow Boxer’ opens with modest percussion and a moody, tingling guitar rhythm as the first part of the track is virtually an instrumental with the guitar rhythm building as a whole.  As the track picks up full pace we hear Stu’s powerful vocals again with the repeated line midway through “Tell me what you see/Tell me what you see/Tell me what you see when you look at yourself and see the enemy”.  It’s another track by the band that slowly builds and creates an atmosphere before building to a powerful crescendo, there is plenty here to like.

So in closing, I’ve been impressed with these four tracks made available on the band’s website.  At present I think early, fair comparisons to the sound of The Bedroom Hour could be made to early-era Coldplay and Elbow in particular but there is no mistake the band have their own, very defined unique sound, Stu’s voice needs to be heard to be believed, he has a very powerful range.  The band have a got a few upcoming gigs at 229 The Venue in London soon, the next of which is 17th May to support their forthcoming debut EP, so feel free to get along and check them out as I think this band have a lot of potential and have them marked down as one to watch out for in the future!

Shadow Boxer
Flynny

X Marks the Spot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf2D5JC-GmE   

Band website:
http://www.thebedroomhour.com